GAMING

The Battle of Smart Home Assistants

In the sea of new technology at the Consumer Electronics Show, a new competition has sprung up from two tech giants. This CES, Google and Amazon have gone head to head in the smart home device market, pushing for the technology to become more than a novelty.

Amazon’s Alexa is no longer just a cylindrical speaker, but is now being integrated into various home appliances. Moen combined Alexa with a shower control panel, LG stuck it in a fridge, and Whirlpool put it into a washer/dryer and an oven. However, Whirlpool has included the option of both Alexa and Google Assistant.

Google Assistant is playing catch up as there are 4,000 devices that currently support Alexa as compared to Google’s 1,500 devices. Google is also hoping that a quality over quantity approach will help as a study done by 360i has shown that Google Home is six times more effective than Alexa.

This fierce competition between the two has left very little room for other companies to jump into the smart home market. It is rumored that Apple will be releasing their HomePod within the next few weeks, but with a hefty $349 price tag it is going to be hard to compete with Google and Amazon’s pricing. Microsoft too has shown very little with its Cortana AI, only revealing one device; a Cortana controlled thermostat made by Johnson Controls.

Regardless of the competition, the future of smart home technology is looking bright and full of options. For a clean installation check out our mounts for the Amazon Echo (1st Gen) and Amazon Echo Dot. Hmm, perhaps the Google Home could also use a little love…